


The Better Part of Me

by LateStarter58



Series: The Felixstowe Sonnets - Tom and Cate [4]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Slow Burn, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 16:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17348516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: “The earth can have but earth which is his due:My spirit is thine, the better part of me.”Sonnet 74, William Shakespeare





	The Better Part of Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 4 of a small, very slow-burning series of stories, mostly little drabbles which I have given as small gifts to a friend over years. This particular instalment in the doomed romance was a birthday present. Will there be more to tell…?

Years.

So many years since that stormy day by the East Anglian coast.

It had been years since they connected so immediately, so deeply when one tripped over the other in a dusty bookshop.

In those years their lives had changed so much, more than either could have imagined as they said goodbye in that quiet side street. They had changed, too. Her family, his career; both had grown and blossomed. In that time, they had travelled the globe, both of them, thousands upon thousands of miles, crossed continents, met so many people, been to so many places. Most of the time they were many thousands of miles apart.

And yet fate kept pulling them together, however unlikely it might seem. Their homes were in different hemispheres, their jobs on different planets. And somehow events still conspired, just once in a while, to put them in the same city, on the same street; at the same bar, at the same hour… only to snatch the moment away again just as suddenly.  Never to allow them time, not since that wet and windy afternoon when they had met, talked, laughed and shared a few hours together in a quiet place, in a different life.

But now he was just minutes ahead of her on the road to the borrowed beach house.

Her rental car seemed too small, too crowded with emotions she could not control, not even explain. At the hotel, she had looked at the slip of paper he had given her, at the address scrawled in his distinctive hand, and without thinking, got up, fetched her coat and gone to her car. It had seemed so simple, so natural, so easy. She had not hesitated. Her head was full only with him; with his scent, his shape, his reality. In that moment, she knew she needed no more than that connection; more of it.

She drove, barely noticing time pass. The streetlights illuminated the sidewalks, the shopfronts and bar doorways sparkled with seasonal cheer. Ahead of her, the road began to slope gently down towards the faint glow of the Pacific that called her onwards. He would be there already, because she was very close now; just a couple of corners away.

A couple more turns in the road and she could be in his arms at last. Arms that had not embraced her since she fell into his lap all that time ago, so far away from here. Her stomach turned over slowly and impulsively she pulled the car to the kerb, her heart a mass of quivering muscle in a tight cage. It hurt to breathe, she could not get air.

_Can I do this?_ _Should I?_

_*_

Tom dropped his keys in the glass dish on the console table. He smiled as he looked around. He liked this house. He had visited it a few times before, usually when it was full of happy people and the noise of chatter and music. Tonight, it was silent, save his footsteps on the wood floor and the faint noise of the brush of the waves kissing the beach below. He walked over to the picture window and watched as streaks of white appeared and disappeared on the gunmetal-grey surface of the great ocean. It was dark, mysterious; largely unknown. As was she. _Would she really come to him? Would they be able, at long last, to express what had gone unsaid between them for so long?_

He reached into his pocket.

*

Her phone vibrated and she glanced at it. A message from him, telling her he had left the gate open so she could pull into the garage below the house, out of sight. _Had he planned this?_ He could not have: she had only told him she was coming here once she was airborne, earlier that day. They did not correspond often, and when they did it was always in code; under the cloak of a casual friendship.

As if thoughts of him didn’t consume her.

As if the desperation to be beside her didn’t make his very essence cry out.

She gripped the wheel, staring ahead, not seeing anything as the engine idled. She needed him, and he her. Their souls were joined in a way that she could never explain. But there were others to consider and she could not simply dismiss that. Her knuckles grew whiter.

Minutes passed, her phone buzzed again. One word.

_Please_

*

He stood still and straight, hardly daring to breathe. There were tears in his eyes but he was not aware of them. He saw nothing but her in the bar: her hair shining in the soft lighting; the way her scarf draped around her neck; the glint in her chocolate eyes when she smiled her sad smile, the one she saved only for him. She was so close he could almost taste her. After all these years of trying to get on with his life, of doing his best to ignore the deep longing that pulled at his heart, no matter how much he tried to forget her. Of dreaming about her, even as he attempted to replace her with others. Now it could be real, at least for one night. He could hold her in his arms and the rest could go away.

But only if she came to him.

The crunch of tyres on the driveway. His heart was in his mouth, his pulse hammered at his temples. His palms were sweating, his mouth was dry. He ran to the door.

She looked too small, so exquisite standing there. He could not speak, nor could she. He simply gathered her into his arms, breathing her in and feeling her heart fluttering as rapidly as his own. He murmured into her lovely hair, his tears now flowing freely.

“You’re here. You’re really here.”


End file.
